


thou little tiny child

by missgiven



Series: trim the hearth & set the table [5]
Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Domestic Fluff, Established Relationship, Fluff, Foster Care, Kid Fic, M/M, Miscommunication, South Downs Cottage (Good Omens)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-09
Updated: 2019-12-09
Packaged: 2021-02-26 04:20:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,355
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21727420
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/missgiven/pseuds/missgiven
Summary: Someone suggests to Aziraphale that there might be a need for foster carers in their community. And Crowley's never met a child in need that he wouldn't try to help."Crowley had leapt into the preparations for their tenure as foster carers like a man possessed. He filled in paperwork with greater accuracy and speed than he had ever done before in his long existence. He organized meetings and home visits and further home reno (which he hated) to get the cottage up to snuff. When they went to their required trainings, Crowley insisted on getting there early and staying late, visiting with the instructor and other prospective parents.'It’s about community,' he explained to Aziraphale."
Relationships: Aziraphale & Crowley (Good Omens), Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Series: trim the hearth & set the table [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1564021
Comments: 10
Kudos: 197





	thou little tiny child

Perhaps it never would have happened if Crowley hadn’t got into an argument about the delphiniums with Susan down the way. After they’d worked out the delphiniums, the argument had progressed to the geraniums. Susan, eager to make her point, had marched off deeper in the garden with Crowley in tow to make some point or other. Aziraphale had been quite left alone in front of the cottage.

Just as he had decided to walk himself home and give Crowley an earful later, the front door had opened to reveal Susan’s husband Geoff, the vicar of the local parish, beckoning Aziraphale inside.

“You may as well come in for a chat. Susan takes her opinions on the garden very seriously. The last time I heard her get going like this, I didn’t see her for a week. And your Anthony sounds like he’s giving her a run for her money.”

Aziraphale had gone in for the offered cup of tea and, as Geoff had predicted, a nice long chat. Every so often they would hear their partners’ voices, still locked in friendly but passionate debate, floating in through the windows. 

During that chat, Geoff had mentioned the need in the region for local foster carers. It had mostly been a passing comment, but it had stuck in Aziraphale’s mind.

* * *

He spent the next two months turning it over and over in his head, _pondering it in his heart_ , as it were. 

Aziraphale had never _really_ been one for children. They made him nervous. You could never quite know what they were thinking. They always seemed moments away from tears, or unfathomable anger, or annoying demands on his time and attention. He couldn’t _read_ them in the same way he could read adults. And they always seemed to have sticky little hands, all set to smear grease and God knew what else all over his books, all over his things. Not that he kept his things as neat and tidy as he ought, as Crowley often reminded him, but he liked the messiness of his things to come from _his own_ carelessness and a fine collection of dust. Nothing _sticky_ from a _foreign party_.

It had been a lark to interact with Warlock, but Aziraphale had insisted on taking the position of gardener for a reason. Crowley had been a very good sport as Nanny Ashtoreth and brought Warlock out to play in the garden almost daily, but Aziraphale had never had to spend more than about an hour with Warlock at a stretch. It had been just about bearable. Beyond that, the thought of being _responsible_ for a young person seemed plain daunting. Privately, he felt certain he’d only make a mess of it.

And those awful children at Warlock’s party had been simply _atrocious._ No respect for what Aziraphale _knew_ to be a respectable magic act.

He had just about put the idea of becoming foster carers out of his mind until one day, at the park, they had run into a young woman Crowley recognized from his gardening club. She had stopped for a chat with her two small children in tow. The chat must have gone on too long for the older child’s taste, who began whining and attempting to sneak off in the direction of the playground. 

“Akash, I need you to wait for mummy, please,” Ranya said, holding onto the boy’s hand firmly. Aziraphale guessed he was about three. Or eight. He could never guess age.

At that moment, the little girl in the pram began to fuss. Ranya began to look stressed, poised between following her son to the playground, caring for her fussy daughter, and enjoying some adult conversation. Aziraphale felt stressed just looking at her.

To his surprise, Crowley held the solution. “I can walk ahead with Akash, if you like? You, Ezra, and Alisha just follow us at your own pace. Stop to feed her if you need to. What do you say, Akash?”

Ranya smiled gratefully at Crowley, nodding her assent.

“Bet you can’t beat me to the slide, Mr. Crowley,” Akash challenged. 

“You’re on.”

Ranya and Aziraphale found a nearby bench from which they could just see the playground. As Ranya situated herself to feed Alisha, Aziraphale watched Crowley and Akash. Halfway through their race, one of them had got distracted, and they were both crouched on the side of the path, transfixed as they inspected something on the ground — perhaps some plant or insect. Crowley seemed to be pointing to different parts of whatever it was they were examining, explaining them to the little boy by his side.

“You don’t have children, do you?” Ranya asked, noting Aziraphale’s gaze.

“No,” Aziraphale said. “I never expected to have children.”

Ranya nodded. “I imagine it must have been difficult,” she said. “Did you always know you would marry a man?”

Aziraphale smiled. “I have known my preferences for a long time,” he admitted. “But coming to love Anthony was a shock to me in every way.”

“I find it hard to believe that Anthony didn’t bully you into having children. He’s such a natural with them.”

Crowley, by this point, was literally boogying over to the playground with Akash. It looked as if they were in some odd form of dance competition. He looked ridiculous and unaccountably perfect.

Ranya’s voice interrupted his thoughts. “Oh, listen to me. Sorry if I’ve been a bit rude. My sister hates when people ask about her not having kids. Of course you’ve made whatever choice is best for the pair of you.”

“No, no,” Aziraphale said. “We — well, we are godfathers to a young man. We haven’t seen him much since he was little, but we saw him an awful lot as a little thing. But Anthony’s never mentioned children of our own. I don’t know if we would be suited."

“Nobody ever thinks they’re suited to parenting,” Ranya said.

“I’ve been thinking of fostering, actually,” Aziraphale found himself blurting out. Ranya looked impressed. “I just. Haven’t mentioned it to Anthony."

Alisha finished nursing. Ranya sorted herself out, propped the baby on her hip. “Do mention it to him,” she advised. “I think he’d go in for it. Push the pram and we’ll join them, won’t you?”

* * *

“Crowley,” Aziraphale said, a few weeks later, one night after dinner. He’d kept thinking after the conversation with Ranya. “Do you remember the fun we had caring for Warlock?”

Crowley looked at him over the edge of his wine glass. “Is _fun_ the word?”

Aziraphale blanched. Had he got the wrong idea of things? “Didn’t you enjoy it, dearest?”

“Eeeeuhhh,” Crowley said, drawing out the noise. “Would have enjoyed it more if there hadn’t been an apocalypse to fail to abort.”

Aziraphale nodded. “That’s true, yes.” Had he got it wrong? He had thought Crowley certainly loved caring for Warlock. He pressed forward. “But…don’t you like children? Didn’t you have a little gaggle of children you cared for during the second World War? ”

Crowley’s frown deepened. “Yes. Bunch of tragic little orphans, they were.”

“Orphans!” Aziraphale said. “That’s it, exactly. And on the ark — you were so concerned about the children getting onto the ark. You smuggled a great many of them onboard.”

“What are you getting at, Aziraphale?” Crowley looked properly upset by this point. Oh, dear. Aziraphale seemed to have put his foot in his mouth. And on only a glass and a half of wine.

“If you don’t like children, we don’t need to. I shouldn’t have brought it up!”

“Brought _what_ up? You haven’t brought up anything except for all my dead kids!”

Oh my, thought Aziraphale.

“ _Your_ kids?” he asked, careful. 

“Whatever,” Crowley spat. “Sslip of the tongue. Slip. What are you saying, Aziraphale?”

“Well, I didn’t mean to upset you, and clearly this is a touchy subject. It’s only that Geoff mentioned the region needing foster carers to me the other day and I thought about your knack for getting along with children. And Ranya thought it was odd that we didn’t have children and there are plenty of reasons not to _have_ children of our own, of course, but to care for them for a time, I thought, might in fact suit…” Crowley was staring at Aziraphale with an incomprehensible expression on his face. Right; stop babbling. “In any case. Silly idea; let’s just get on with our evening and forget it.”

“Right,” Crowley said slowly. “Right. Yeah, angel, we can just get on.”

The evening didn’t quite get on after that, though. Aziraphale tried to offer several alternative topics of conversation, but Crowley wouldn’t have any of them; only stared into the fire, lost in thought. Eventually Aziraphale gave it up for a lost cause and began to read, feeling foolish for bringing up the idea in the first place.

* * *

Later that week, Aziraphale came home from a walk to find Crowley seated at their kitchen table wrapping up a phone call.

“Thanks for your time. Yes, Wednesday morning is perfect. My husband and I are looking forward to meeting you. ’Bye.”

“What’s that about, dear?”

“Fostering team member from the local council is coming by Wednesday.Remind me to put ingredients for biscuits on the grocery list. It’s not an official home visit but it doesn’t hurt to make a good first impression.”

“I’m sorry?” Aziraphale sat down heavily. 

Crowley popped up to put the kettle on, keeping his back carefully to Aziraphale.

“Didn’t you want us to sign up for foster care? It was your idea. You mentioned it a few nights ago. I’ve thought about it and I think it’s an excellent idea. Did you know over 60,000 children in the UK are in care? They deserve a nice home, and we’ve got one.” 

“But dearest, when I brought it up, you didn’t seem exactly keen.”

A violent shrug of one sharp shoulder. “I like kids. You were right.”

The time passed when Crowley should have returned to the table with their tea, but he was still very definitely facing the counter. He looked very tense.

“Crowley,” Aziraphale tried, going over to him and reaching out for one of his hands.

The second Aziraphale’s fingertips touched his wrist, Crowley sprang back into action, grabbing the mugs of tea and returning to the table as if nothing had happened.

“Did you mean it?” he asked, voice rather brittle. “The team member’s just coming to talk to us. We can just ask questions and nothing has to come of it. Of course we can bow out whenever. So if you didn’t mean it that’s fine.” He set down Aziraphale’s mug of tea with more force than necessary. A drop jumped out.

“Crowley, dear,” Aziraphale said softly, and waited until Crowley looked up at him, nibbling a biscuit and frowning. “I did mean it. Wednesday morning, you said?”

“At half ten.”

“I’ll make sure the living room is tidied,” Aziraphale promised.

Crowley bit his lip, not quite managing to hide the small smile on his face.

* * *

Crowley had leapt into the preparations for their tenure as foster carers like a man possessed. He filled in paperwork with greater accuracy and speed than he had ever done before in his long existence. He organized meetings and home visits and further home reno (which he _hated_ ) to get the cottage up to snuff. When they went to their required trainings, Crowley insisted on getting there early and staying late, visiting with the instructor and other prospective parents.

“It’s about _community_ ,” he explained to Aziraphale. “You need to build up a _team_ to _support yourself_ as a foster carer. Support the carer; support the child. And we need to know others who will have children! We can’t take in a child and isolate it in our cottage. It will need playdates and that.”

In the evenings, he made Aziraphale read parenting book after parenting book aloud to him. He took furious notes on his phone about each one, nodding vehemently when he agreed and clucking his tongue at outdated research.

Six months into this process, they were now two weeks into their first placement — a little three month old baby named Ivy.

Aziraphale found himself full of awe for Crowley, who was somehow a natural at caregiving.

He insisted on wearing the baby everywhere, using a complicated sling he’d bought at some expensive store.

“Do you know what kind of trauma it is, to be taken from your mother?” he’d snapped, the first time Aziraphale suggested that perhaps he ought to put the baby down. “Of course Ivy ought to be held. Of course she _wants_ to be. In this stage of development, it’s important that she build a strong, stable bond with a caregiver. And anyway, I put her down for tummy time, and she’ll do more of that and more floor time as she gets older.”

Aziraphale did not mention at that time that the tummy time Crowley and Ivy seemed to favor involved Ivy lying on her tummy on top of Crowley’s chest, staring up at his face, and occasionally holding eye contact.

Ivy proved herself to be a remarkably calm baby. Crowley devoted himself to her utterly. He quickly learned her cries: time for a feeding, time for a change, time for a nap, a gassy tummy. Aziraphale largely had no idea what was going on at any time of day, but he was completely enamored of Crowley and Ivy. 

By the end of their first two weeks, though, Aziraphale was getting worried for Crowley’s sake. They were both used to sleeping by now, and of course Crowley had been sleeping regularly for millennia, the silly thing. Ivy’s entrance to their home had not disturbed Aziraphale’s patterns overmuch, but Crowley gave up sleeping entirely. At first, Aziraphale thought he had adopted “sleep when the baby sleeps” as a guideline, but it quickly became clear that Crowley watched Ivy just as intently during her sleeping hours as he did in her waking ones. She slept either in Crowley’s arms, or in a bassinet that Crowley kept close by wherever he was, or in the bed-side cot Crowley had insisted on purchasing. (“Co-sleeping certainly has benefits, Aziraphale, so I want her close, but we have to be safe about it!”) 

Aziraphale thought the point of the bed-side cot was to allow Crowley to sleep, too. But whenever he went to bed or woke next to Crowley, he found the demon lying stiffly awake, eyes fixed on the rise and fall of Ivy’s little chest. He tried suggesting softly that Crowley might sleep as well, that humans in fact always slept when their babies did, but Crowley brushed him off. 

“It’s not good for you, darling,” he told Crowley, as the bags below the demon’s eyes grew and grew. “You’re used to sleep. Just because you theoretically _can_ go without, doesn’t mean you should.”

They’d just got back from a Tesco run as a family (as a _family_! Aziraphale was not one to celebratethe separation of a little baby from her own mother, but creating a sanctuary for a child in need with his beloved Anthony quite warmed his heart). Aziraphale began to put the groceries away. When he noted that Crowley had neither begun helping him, nor moved to find a place to sit with the sleeping Ivy, he glanced back.

Crowley was leaning against the door he'd just shut behind them, sunglasses pushed up into his long hair, eyes closed. His body looked tense and worn out. The bags under his eyes were dark and deep.

“Crowley?” Aziraphale asked him. “Are you all right?”

“Mmh,” Crowley said, nodding, eyes still shut. One arm cradled Ivy, the other hung limp at his side.

“You look very pale, dearest. And like you might drop.” Aziraphale crossed over to stand in front of Crowley and the baby.

Crowley forced his eyes open and gave Aziraphale a weary, beatific half-smile. “Can’t go to sleep, angel. Gotta watch her. Gotta keep her safe.”

Aziraphale frowned at Crowley, and decided that this had gone on long enough.

“My dear. I’m sorry to tell you this, but you’re being ridiculous.” Crowley opened his mouth to argue, but Aziraphale pressed on. “Give her here, please.” He held out his arms for Ivy.

“No,” Crowley said mulishly. “Passing her over might wake her. And she’s not as used to you as she is to me. What will she do if she wakes and I’m not there to soothe her? What will that do for her development? She needs to have a steady reliable caregiver —”

“My very dear boy,” Aziraphale interrupted. He wrapped his arms around Crowley and Ivy, very gently. “Hush. Stop worrying so much. Are we not co-parents in this?”

Crowley slumped sideways into one of Aziraphale’s shoulders, still minding Ivy’s comfort and safety even in his exhaustion. “I know we are, but —”

“Here’s what we will do,” Aziraphale told him, knowing that he had already won. “You will pass Ivy over to me. We’ll all go into the bedroom. I will read, holding our sleepy girl on my chest. When she wakes, I will change her, feed her, play with her, and so forth. While that is happening, you will sleep for no less than _eight hours._ And I do mean that, Crowley. If you can manage, I’d like you to sleep straight through til tomorrow morning.”

“You don’t know her cries like I do,” Crowley mumbled into Aziraphale’s shoulder. “Or her sschedule.”

“Offer 180mL of formula about every three or four hours during the day,” Aziraphale recited. “We measure time from the beginning of the last feeding. When she wakes, we play. You like to walk her around the cottage and the garden, showing things and letting her touch if they’re safe. She likes being read and spoken to. We always include tummy time, and she likes lying under her baby gym. She usually, but not always, naps after a bottle. Naps occur around midmorning, early afternoon, and late afternoon. She goes down for her longest sleep around 8pm. Change her nappy when she’s wet or soiled. Have I forgotten anything?”

Crowley gave a “hmph” noise against Aziraphale. “You sure, angel? I can stay up with her.”

“My dear, I very much doubt that. Now if you please.” Aziraphale neatly slotted his arm under Ivy, against Crowley’s. “You’ll have to help me with this infernal sling.”

Crowley helped him into it, looking reluctant but grateful. Before he would be steered to the bed, he insisted on clearing Aziraphale’s bedside table entirely and stocking it with supplies: a sterile bottle full of fresh water, a pre-measured amount of formula, seven clean diaper cloths, three changes of clothes and six cloth diapers (“use the blue ones at night, they have heavier inserts in them, she’ll wet through if you don’t”), plus several books and toys for good measure. There was barely a spare corner for Aziraphale’s book.

“You sure you’ll be all right, angel?” Crowley asked one last time, finally curled up under the covers beside Aziraphale. 

Aziraphale was propped up with plenty of pillows, Ivy safe against his chest, Crowley’s head pillowed on his hip. He felt remarkably content. “Ivy and I shall be very happy indeed, dearest. Now go to sleep. I’ll wake you in the morning.”

“Wake me before if you need anything,” Crowley mumbled. “Give her a kiss from me. I’ll miss her.”

“I know you will, love.” Aziraphale stroked Crowley’s hair softly. “Sleep now.”

Aziraphale, with two precious creatures sleeping on him and a good book in hand, then enjoyed potentially the finest hour of his existence.

It was broken when Ivy finally woke. Despite his best efforts, she did not seem to agree with him as vehemently as she agreed with Crowley. It was a difficult afternoon for them both, but by the time evening came, they had settled into an uneasy mutual respect. _She_ appreciated his magician’s patter, and quite right too. When Crowley woke, he would have to bully him into sharing more equitably the care of their enchanting little friend.

**Author's Note:**

> Title of course from the Coventry Carol.
> 
> Note that Crowley has Opinions and Practices that he takes about child rearing, but like, let us not shame parents who do things in their own ways, when their own ways differ. (Although if you find yourself not sleeping out of anxiety like Crowley potentially reach out for some help!) I've worked in early childhood education for 5 years and half of that was with under 1s so Crowley echoes a lot of child rearing advice I've read -- but I also am very much a Childless Adult and like. Support parents in the difficult choices they make!!
> 
> Prompt taken from the instagram AdventWord. Day 5: Raise.


End file.
